Safe attachment



Dec. 2, 1969 J. M. CHEZEM 3,481,287

SAFE ATTACHMENT Filed March 8, 1968 ATTORNEYS United States Patent O 3,481,287 SAFE ATTACHMENT Joe M. Chezem, R.R. 7, Frankfort, Ind. 46041 Filed Mar. 8, 1968, Ser. No. 711,571 Int. Cl. Eg 1/02 U.S. Cl. 109-1 9 Claims ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE permit opening of the door. A removing handle is provided with cams and appropriate linkage to disengage the base of the housing from the safe for removal thereof from the safe.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Field of the invention This invention relates generally to safes and more particularly to a top-mounted removable unlocking and opening apparatus.

Description 0f the prior art Known prior art includes safes having top-mounted combination dials. An example is the Creswell Patent No. 2,264,660, issued Dec. 2, 1941. Such an arrangement permits the user to unlock the safe without bending or stooping to read and work a combination lock dial. However there remains a problem in that many attempted burglaries of safes although perhaps unsuccessful so far as entry to the safe is concerned, nevertheless result in damage or destruction of the combination dial. This is obviously undesirable both from the standpoint of repair or replacement costs, but even more importantly from the standpoint of making the safe inaccessible to authorized persons.

SUMMARY Described briefly, in a typical embodiment of the present invention, a combination dial and operating handle unit is removably mounted atop a safe for operation of the safe when desired. Neither a dial nor an operating handle is provided elsewhere on the safe. The assembly can readily be removed from the safe, when desired, and placed elsewhere when the business establishment is closed for the evening or week-end. Consequently the dial and operating handle would be of no interest to the prospective burglar and ordinary efforts to crack the safe will not cause any damage to the combination dial or operating handle assembly.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING FIGURE l is a front elevational view showing a safe incorporating a typical embodiment of t-he invention, with a portion of the front outer shell of the safe cut away to illustrate certain relevant interior features.

FIGURE 2 is a top plan view of the top-mounted apparatus, with the cover removed.

FIGURE 3 is a front elevational view of the apparatus of FIGURE 2.

3,481,287 Patented Dec. 2, 1969 "ice DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT Referring now to the drawings in detail, a safe 11 0f the Post Office7 type is provided with a door 12 mounted on hinges 13 which would typically be concealed. The door includes a combination lock 14 of conventional construction and door locking bars 16, also of conventional construction, only two being shown for convenience of illustration. An operating member 17 may be provided for rotation back and forth in the direction of the arrows 18 for extending and retracting the locking bars to secure o r release the door, respectively. A lug 19 in the combination lock is received in a notch in the operating member 17 so that the latter cannot be operated unless the lock is unlocked. The features described to this point are of conventional nature, and the present invention can be applied to safes having such construction features or a variety of other conventional lock and bolting mechanisms in safes. This will be apparent as the description proceeds.

According to one embodiment of the present invention, an upstanding lower dial shaft 22 is connected by appropriate coupling means such as bevel gears, for eX- ample, to the combination lock shaft 23. A vertical operating shaft 24 is connected by appropriate coupling means to the shaft 26 associated with the operating member 17. An upper dial shaft 27 is keyed, splined, or otherwise connected to the shaft 22, and an upper operating shaft 28 is similarly connected to the shaft 24. These connections are provided at approximately the locations 29 and 31, respectively, and the upper and lower shafts are separable at this location, the lower shafts remaining permanently in the door but the upper shafts being removable according to additional features of the invention. The t of the upper and lower shafts is reasonably accurate, particularly the dial shafts, to minimize or completely avoid any possibility of relative rotation therebetween when the shafts are engaged with each other.

A dial and operating assembly 32 is provided with a magnetic base 33 securable by magnetic attraction to the top of the safe, which is usually made of steel or other ferromagnetic material. An operating handle 34 is provided atop the shaft extension 36, and a combination dial, knob 37 is mounted atop an upper dial shaft extension 38 (FIGURE 3); a removing handle 39 is mounted atop the handle shaft 41.

Referring now to FIGURE 2, cams 42 and 43 are mounted to the removing handle shaft 41. The function of this shaft and the handle 39 will be first described because, as mentioned above, one of the advantages of this invention is the fact that it facilitates removal of the dial and control handle from the safe to some other location. The cams are normally located as shown in FIGURE 2 and, in order to remove the assembly, including the magnetic base 33, from a safe, the shaft must be rotated in the clockwise direction as indicated by the arrow 44. This is effective to cause cam 43 to pivot the follower member 46 counter-clockwise (arrow 47 in FIGURE 3) on the pivot axis 48. The face 49 of the follower member is engaged by the cam 43 for this purpose and the counter-clockwise pivoting of the member causes the portion 51 thereof to push downwardly on the arm 52. Arm 52 is connected to a cross shaft 53 having another arm 54 near the opposite end thereof. This shaft is pivotally mounted to be rockable on a horizontal axis 56 and the magnetic base is appropriately apertured for the downwardly projecting portions of the arms 52 and 54 to pass therethrough. When the member 46 is pivoted by the cam 43, the lower ends of arms S2 and 54 project from the bottom face 57 of the magnetic base and push the base up from the top surface of the safe to enable a person to then pull the assembly off the safe. For reinstallation, the removing handle can be turned back to its initial position whereupon the arms 52 and 54 will again be retracted into the base and the base will secure itself to the top of the safe.

Referring further to the drawings, the upper dial shaft 27 is shown in FIGURE 3 to` have a rectangular lower end at 58. Accordingly, the upper end of the shaft 22 (FIGURE l) would have a socket of square cross-section therein to receive the lower end of the shaft 27 The shaft extension 38 is mounted in the housing to avoid any movement vertically therein and is splined or otherwise keyed to the enlarged upper end portion 78 of the shaft 27, the extension having a cavity therein receiving a coil spring 62 urging the shaft 27 downwardly.

Shaft extension 36 is similarly mounted in the housing to avoid vertical movement therein and the upper end portion of the upper operating shaft 28 is slidingly received therein and urged downwardly with respect thereto by the coil spring 63. The downward motion of both the shafts 27 and 28 is limited by a stop plate 64 pivotally mounted to brackets upstanding from the base for pivoting on a horizontal axis 66. This stop plate 64 includes an upstanding cam follower portion 67 aflixed thereto and the follower face 68 of which engages a cam 69 provided on the shaft extension 36. This limits the downward pivoting of the plate 64 so as to prevent the upper dial and operating shafts 27 and 28 from descending too far.

The lower end of the operating shaft 28 may also be provided with a square drive surface 71 to be received in a square socket in the upper end of the shaft 24. In order to be able to open the safe door when the cornbination has been unlocked, it is necessary to remove the shafts 27 and 28 from the door. This is done by a lifting feature of the apparatus described, including the cam 69 and the support plate 64. As the operating handle is turned in the counter-clockwise direction (arrow 72 in FIGURE 2) the ramp on the cam 69 engages the follower surface 68 moving the follower surface in the direction of the arrow 73 which tilts the plate 64 on axis 66 to move upwardly (arrow 74 in FIGURE 3) the yoke portions 76 and 77 supporting the enlarged upper end portions 78 and 79, respectively of shafts 27 and 28, respectively, the shoulders of these portions being constantly supported on the yoke portions of the support plate. Thus the upper dial and operating shafts 27 and 28 can be moved upwardly against the bias of the springs 62 and 63 for retraction of the lower ends of the shafts into the magnetic base to facilitate opening of the safe door.

Undoubtedly the reader has already realized that the operation of the combination lock is done simply by turning the knob 37 in the appropriate sequence according to the dial markings associated therewith, the motion being transmitted to the lock shaft 23 itself to unlock the lock. It is desirable that this shaft not be moved inadvertently when the assembly is being removed from the safe or when the upper shafts are being raised to enable opening of the safe door. In order to accomplish this objective in the rst instance, the external cylindrical surface of the dial shaft extension has a knurled surface at 81. Typically this would be a straight knurled surface, although other types of surface finishes could also be employed. This surface is engageable by a suitably knurled or otherwise treated face 82 of a brake arm 83 mounted to a shaft 84. A cam follower arm 86 is also afxed to this shaft 84 and this follower is normally urged against the removal handle shaft 41 by means of a spring 87 received on a guide rod 88.

Shortly after initial turning of the shaft 41 in the clockwise direction of arrow 44, cam 42 moves the follower 86 in the direction of the arrow 89 engaging the brake surface 82 with the knurled surface 81 of the dial shaft extension 38. This prevents any rotation of the `shaft 27. Accordingly as the handle is further turned to 4 lift the base off the safe, the dial shaft 27 remains locked and will so remain until the assembly is again installed on the safe the next day for use.

As mentioned previously it is also desirable to lock the dial shaft 27 whenever the shafts are being raised to facilitate opening of the door. For this purpose a cam follower 91 is provided on a shaft 92 to which a brake arm 93 is mounted having a brake surface 94 similar to surface 82 for engagement with the knurled surface 81 4of the dial shaft extension 38. The end of shaft 92 is urged in the direction of arrow 96 by the same spring 87 which urges shaft 84 in the opposite direction, and motion of the shaft in this direction is prevented by engagement of the cam follower 91 with the surface of the operating shaft extension 36. Before the operating handle has been moved sufficiently in the direction of arrow 72 for lifting of the shafts, the initial ramp portion of the cam surface 69 will have engaged the cam follower 91 and moved the shaft and brake arm 93 to the left sufciently to engage the knurled surface thereof and lock the dial shaft. Subsequent rotation of the operating shaft in the direction of arrow 72 will serve to lift the shafts as previously described. The guide rod 88 is received in the ends of the shafts 92 and 84 with suicient end play to permit the desired and necessary axial movement of these respective shafts toward and away from each other, without the guide shaft falling out. Thus the single spring 87 serves the dual purpose of biasing the shafts 84 and 92 in opposite directions, the motion in those directions being limited by engagement of the respective followers with the respective operating cams therefor.

While the invention has been disclosed and described in some detail in the drawings and foregoing description, they are to be considered as illustrative and not restrictive in character, as other modifications may readily suggest themselves to persons skilled in this art and within the broad scope of the invention, reference being made to the appended claims.

The invention claimed is:

1. Safe operating apparatus comprising:

a member mountable to the exterior of a safe;

dial means mounted to said member and rotatable thereon; irst shaft means extending from said member and connected to said dial means and rotatable thereby; and

retractor means associated with said shaft means and operable, when actuated, to retract a portion of said shaft means into said member.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein said member includes a magnetic base xable, by its magnetic attraction, to an exterior surface of a safe having ferromagnetic material associated therewith.

3. The apparatus of claim 2 and further comprising:

manually operable releasing means mounted to said member, said releasing means including cam means and arm means operable by said cam means to extend from said member into engagement with the exterior of a safe to separate said member from the safe.

4. The apparatus of claim 3 and further comprising:

second cam means associated with Said releasing means,

and

brake means associated with said shaft means,

said brake means being operable by said second cam means to prevent rotation of said shaft means upon operation of said releasing means.

5. The apparatus of claim 1 and further comprising:

manually-operable door operating means mounted to said member;

second shaft means extending from said member and connected to said door operating means and rotatable thereby,

said retractor means being also associated with said second shaft means for retraction thereof along with said rst shaft means.

6. The apparatus of claim 5 wherein said retractor means includes:

cam means mounted to said door operating means;

a rockable plate pivotally mounted to said member and having a follower member engaging said cam means,

said plate having a first yoke normally receiving a portion of said first shaft means therein and supporting a shoulder of said iirst shaft means thereon, and said plate having a second yoke normally receiving a portion of Said second shaft means therein and supporting a shoulder of said second shaft means thereon,

said plate being rockable by operation of said cam means on said follower member t0 retract both of said shaft means.

7. The apparatus of claim 6 and further comprising:

brake means associated `with said first shaft means,

said brake means having cam follower means engaging said cam means and operable thereby, before retraction of said shaft means, to prevent rotation of said first shaft means upon operation of said door operating means.

8. The apparatus of claim 7 and further comprising:

a safe having a door therein, with door securing means, and with combination lock means operable, when locked, to disable release of said door securing means,

lower dial shaft means coupled to said lock means for operation thereof,

lower operating shaft means coupled to said securing means for operation thereof,

said rst shaft means being non-rotatably coupled to said lower dial shaft means for operation of said lock by said dial means, and

said second shaft means being non-rotatably coupled to said lower operating shaft means for operation of said securing means by said door operating means,

said first and second shaft means being separable from said lower dial shaft means and said lower operating shaft means, respectively, by the said retraction of said rst and second shaft means.

9*. The apparatus of claim 8 and further comprising:

manually operable releasing means mounted to said member, Said releasing means including cam means and arm means operable by said cam means to extend from said member into engagement with the exterior of said safe to separate said member from the safe.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,909,453 5/1933 Brown 70-445 2,264,660 12/1941 Creswell 109-1 2,293,197 8/ 1942 Dorr 70--204 3,063,282 11/1962 Aytes 70-163 3,296,842 l/ 1'967 Auerbach 70-163 REINALDO P. MACHADO, Primary Examiner 

